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Brand Engine |  Goodwin |  Gravity |  Tin Horse |  MSU School of Packaging

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Brand Engine

Yes, you can have your cake and eat it, too. Or in the case of Brand Engine of Sausalito, CA, you can covet your candy and satisfy your desires without the consequences sugar can bring. In Brand Engine's thorough and inspired package design treatments of Golightly's offerings, color-saturated photography is intentionally coupled with graphic elements engineered and designed to elicit taste appeal.

"People buy with their eyes," says Eric Read, Brand Engine principal and creative director. "So we really wanted to change potential buyers' perceptions of the sugar-free candy experience using rich, delicious, 'flavorful' imagery we wanted to elevate the entire experience."

A profile of the typical Golightly consumer that emerged from Brand Engine's market audits helped to prompt the package design process. In emotional terms, the quintessential sugar-free candy lover wants freedom from constraint — a hiatus from the reservations or outright guilt that flouting health and dieting restrictions can bring. "Through internal market analysis, consumers are telling us, 'I want to celebrate. I want to have a good time. But the doctor tells me I can't,'" Read notes. "Golightly is here to tell people they can."

The sugar substitute in Golightly's products, Splenda, also figured into Brand Engine's strategic decision-making process. According to Will Burke, Brand Engine principal and creative director, "Splenda's sugar-free blue is known on the market and we included it in our package redesign to leverage that standard color in the design." Not only did Brand Engine want to tap "the growing loyalty to Splenda products," Burke says, "but in our own side-by-side taste comparisons, Splenda works convincingly to take the sugar-free taste out of Golightly candy."

The "dot" in Golightly's original packaging design was also carried forward in Brand Engine's work. "It's arresting, like a stop sign, but also adds bounce and encourages a 'Go for it' energy," Read offers.

Otherwise, Brand Engine took what it saw as many disparate design elements and created a unifying effect in its packaging concept for Golightly. "We worked with our structural design partner, Solid Design, to create one primary and proprietary structure with an innovative, slimming design," Read adds.

The manufacturing process benefits, too. "We saw that overall there may actually be cost efficiencies to this packaging system, which is one easy, unified structure," Read explains. "Our design can be printed conventionally, and converted with an easily modified setup. Afterwards, the result is a structure that is easy to inventory, warehouse, ship and display."